A gas turbine engine generally includes, in serial flow order, a compressor section, a combustion section, a turbine section, and an exhaust section. In operation, air enters an inlet of the compressor section where one or more axial compressors progressively compress the air until it reaches the combustion section. Fuel is mixed with the compressed air and burned within the combustion section to provide combustion gases. The combustion gases are routed from the combustion section through a hot gas path defined within the turbine section and then exhausted from the turbine section via the exhaust section.
In particular configurations, the turbine section includes, in serial flow order, a high pressure (HP) turbine and a low pressure (LP) turbine. The HP turbine and the LP turbine each include various rotatable turbine components such as turbine rotor blades, rotor disks and retainers, and various stationary turbine components such as stator vanes or nozzles, turbine shrouds and engine frames. The rotatable and the stationary turbine components at least partially define the hot gas path through the turbine section. As the combustion gases flow through the hot gas path, thermal energy is transferred from the combustion gases to the rotatable turbine components and the stationary turbine components.
Gas turbine engines and other types of turbo-machinery are often used to drive loads such as electrical generators. Gas turbine engines and other large drive train systems have a moment of inertia, a torsional stiffness, and natural damping. The low mechanical damping in high power trains can cause torsional interaction between power system components and the mechanical drive train. For example, if one of the natural frequencies of the mechanical drive train is excited to a torsional resonance, the resulting alternating mechanical torque can reach values that can damage or cause fatigue in components of the rotor shaft system.
Thus, a system and method of operating a gas turbine engine or similar machinery so as to provide improved torsional damping would be welcomed in the art.